We performed a comparison between Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and HPE SimpliVity based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."As the client had acquired another company some distance away, they were concerned about having a single SAN in one location or the other. StarWind vSAN allowed us to keep a copy of the data local to each site without asking the client to pay for two SANs in addition to the two new servers they needed."
"StarWind vSAN is easy to deploy and administer."
"Integration with Microsoft clustering has been perfect, allowing us to leverage our investment in MS server licensing to the fullest."
"The configuration is so much simpler than that of a traditional SAN with fewer points of failure to worry about."
"Active-active work mode leads to true redundancy of storage and allows us to distribute the load between multiple nodes."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
"Highly available storage is the most valuable feature. The entire rollout is hyper-converged and requires no extra storage further than the hosts in which Hyper-V is running. Another feature that has been great is the support from StarWind in general. We have their proactive support package on the main cluster that employs Starwind Virtual SAN."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"You don't have to spend much time evaluating the hardware. It can be deployed in a short time. The tool is also easy to upgrade."
"The solution immediately expands storage area when you add nodes."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is the flexibility of the nodes. Additionally, if there are any critical issues they update us through emails. The issues are taken care of remotely on the system."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
"I have found the most important features of Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the capacity to manage the storage because the storage is built in the servers. The type of profiles you can attribute to the storage is a benefit. You can manage the storage by profiles. Overall the solution is a good speed and performance."
"We have not had any problem with customer support at SimpliVity."
"My day-to-day experiences are better now that my backups are no longer running into production."
"It has reduced my data center activities."
"It comes all in one box."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the backup rate and the backup transfer."
"I find the replication feature valuable."
"The way it does backups is its most valuable feature. It replicates snapshots with very low bandwidth. We only have a 50 megabit link to that site, and it doesn't really use much of it at all. Therefore, it is a really good fit for getting our backups done."
"My impression is that it is a very nice solution. Very simple to use."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"Pricing is a bit high."
"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."
"The configuration can a bit cumbersome."
"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
"The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for Linux and macOS, as it would reduce implementation costs."
"StarWind Virtual SAN could benefit from better integration with other tools and technologies, such as backup and disaster recovery solutions."
"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"The power switch on the hardware is located in a poor location where it can accidentally be pushed. In an update, they should solve this issue so people do not push it accidentally to have their service go down. A possible solution is the switch should be inside."
"Scalability is an area that could be improved. We are looking at a maximum of 32 nodes now in a cluster, but going to 64 or 128 would be a major advantage."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"The Dell VxRail solution is based on vSAN Ready Nodes, but the Dell VxRail is fully automated. It would be helpful if this automation feature could be added to the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. For example, we need to install VMware ESXi, and manually expand the cluster."
"The initial setup was complex. It took a few months to integrate and adapt to the new platform."
"Bottleneck is the main issue."
"I would love it if the solution would auto data balance within the cluster. It is possible, and eventually, it will be likely that certain nodes within the same cluster will hold more data than the other nodes."
"The technical support is weak. It is a layered product. It has a software solution on top of the SimpliVity solution, which is built on top of the hardware of the HPE DL380s. When we call for a problem that we know is related to the DL380, we get a SimpliVity guy trying to solve a SimpliVity problem. If it is not a SimpliVity problem, it's a hardware problem. So, it takes awhile for them to figure out which part of the organization should really be helping us."
"If there was anything I would like to see, it would be indexed backups."
"Integration with external solutions outside the HPE posed challenges."
"It would be better if it could integrate more easily with other vendors."
"When it comes to performing backups, the dashboard is not intuitive and not user-friendly."
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is ranked 11th in HCI with 14 reviews while HPE SimpliVity is ranked 5th in HCI with 151 reviews. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is rated 8.6, while HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes writes "Offers good performance and is easy to use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HPE SimpliVity writes "Provides a unified management interface that allows administrators to manage all aspects of the infrastructure". Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series, Dell PowerFlex and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, whereas HPE SimpliVity is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Alletra dHCI and Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series. See our Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. HPE SimpliVity report.
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